


Shattered Memories

by shadow_in_the_shade, Zedrobber



Category: House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski, Silent Hill (2006), Silent Hill (Video Game Series), The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Horror, Body Horror, F/M, Guilt, Past Rape/Non-con, Psychological Horror, Rape/Non-con Elements, Redemption, Survival Horror, c'mon now, it's Pyramid head, monsters as manifestations, silent hill/ musketeers cross-over fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2018-12-14 22:34:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11792883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadow_in_the_shade/pseuds/shadow_in_the_shade, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zedrobber/pseuds/Zedrobber
Summary: Basically Silent Hill: The Milathos Edition. If you know Silent Hill 2 you know the story - man gets letter from supposedly dead wife calling him to Silent Hill. His issues manifest themselves as terrifying monsters as he is besieged and reminded of his guilt at the things he did. Her experiences shape the landscape of the town and her monsters are sent to plague him too, especially her protector, Pyramid Head. Athos has a terrible, horrible no-good, really bad time, no kidding on his journey to find redemption.This is gonna be a weird fic ok guys, I won't be offended by anyone who doesn't want to continue after the first chapter - lots of it will be written in walk-through style, there are gonna be a lot of links to images, maps and bizarre typographical nightmares that will be a part of the plot. At times I'll be drawing heavily from Danielewski's "House of Leaves" just to add to the extreme weirdness. Also it is gonna be grim so if you normally read my Milathos fics but decide to pass on this one that is absolutely fine!





	1. Chapter 1

**Athos *1**

       

**The Nightmare**

 

A **_house_.*2**

A tree.

She says, _why don’t you burn me?_

He sees the flowers fall from her hand, a flutter of **forget-me-nots**.

Rope to branch, the thudding sound. He runs.

He runs out of time. The field keeps calling him back to the start.

A _**house**_ on fire.

She says _I’m burning._

He runs.

He runs away.

She is speaking but he cannot hear her –

(he could if he took his hands from his ears)

\- he can only see her lips moving.

He cannot take his hands from his ears.

He does not have hands, stumps of arms fused to ears.

He is drowning in ice water. She still comes for him, burning.

His _**house**_ still burning- he never set the fire, **forget-me-nots** going up in flames.

Still she comes.

_Go to hell!_ he screams, voice far. She laughs.

_Can’t you see?_ she says. _We’re already there.*3_

He wakes.

(He never wakes).

 

*** 4**

***5**

***6**

 

**The Letter**

****

**The Girl**

He remembers this road, this sign; it always seems so high, so creaky, he remembers coming down this road in better days. Well, they were all of them better days. He remembers her here- he half thought to catch her under that sign, where the road curves, where the edge drops away to the left; half thought to see her like a ghost in white, a bride, that girl in the church in white, her smile catching up a sunbeam, licking her lips for the taste of it. He half thought he would find her right there waiting for him, a kingfisher flash of **flowers** in her hand, standing beneath the sign that reads _SILENT HILL._

Waiting for him in Silent Hill.

He touches the letter in his pocket, appalled to find it is real. There’s no stamp but there it was, lying on his floor so innocuously, a letter that shouldn’t ( _that couldn’t)_ have been there. But there it was, calling him back after all these years.

_You brought me back here, Anne,_ he thinks – _Why did you bring me back?_

His feet move independent of his will, taking him on around the curve of the road to where the lake lies grey to the right of him, blurry in the drizzle, but he follows the curve to the left, blurry in the ash and fog.

His head beats a chant, repeating over and over- _Why? Why bring me back? We were happy here. Why call me?_ And to himself- _Why answer the call?_ Though from the moment he picked up the letter he knew that he would.

_I left this life,_ he thinks, and more and more like a drumbeat, the thoughts of why and how leading back to the same two beat rhythm –

_You’re dead, you’re dead, you’re dead._

On the outskirts of town, a _**house**_ is burning. His _**house**_.

 


	2. Chapter 2

****

 

**Inventory**

**Weapons:**

**Flintlock** , loaded [x 1]

 **Powder, balls**  [x 30]

[Medium powerful, better on short distances, killing shot, may draw enemies.]

**Rapier**

[Long distance Melee weapon sharp edge, keeps enemies at bay, can deliver killing blows.]

**Short knife**

[Good for hand to hand combat, short range only.]

**_Letter from Anne_ **

[See above.]

**Silver locket**

[long chain, pressed forget-me-not inside. No inscription.]

 **Wineskin**  [x 3]

 

**The House / Streets of Silent Hill**

It is not his _**house**_. As he gets closer he cannot think why at first he thought it was, the mind playing tricks – reality shifting and things, even buildings, shifting with it, a door opening into the wrong room of the mind. He blinks, catching up, then blinks again for smoke; the air is full, flames reaching up into the dark sky, embers crackling above and falling towards him. He would have turned away if not for the screaming inside.

He runs forward, arm up to shield his eyes, but the front door is a mass of flame so he swerves to the right where the flame is less, searching for a side door, a way in that will not kill him. He finds one, enters, the rooms are hot here but not on fire, he can just about see through the smoke, eyes stinging. On a small table to the left of the door he sees a map spread out, a neat bunch of **forget me nots** holding it down where the lake is marked out. A map of the town and just beneath the flowers the words _Rosewater Park_ circled in red and in red scrawled on the side of the map the words _Remember that summer?_ in a bold, looping script. He picks up the map and the **flowers** , and folding the one around the other

**You Got: Map of Silent Hill**

****

he puts them in his pocket just as he hears a cry from the upper floor –

_HELP ME!_

and a whimper after it that sounds very like his own name. He runs into the smoking part of the _**house**_ , pushing through the heat and suffocation, up the stairs. His footfalls are heavy on the steps and they shudder beneath him disturbingly. He pushes past logic, instinct, any concern for his own survival to move forward to where the cry came from, running down a corridor with his arm in front of his eyes, straining to breathe, feeling the smoke and the heat trying to suffocate him, his throat constricting and (this is what it’s like, oh yes this is what it’s like, good) strangling himself by pushing on-

_ATHOS!_

she cries and he pushes against the bedroom door but he does not think and does not test it and his palms burn and he yells and pushes his shoulder against it and she stands there in the middle of the room in the middle of the flames and it’s too late and her hands are out in front of her pleading and her eyes are asking him why he did not come sooner and

“I’m burning,” she says, and she runs past him on fire, in a dress of flame, and he follows her back down the stairs and on the first step his foot goes through and she floats on down the stairs but the landing is falling away and he with it and CRASH though the boards and down into the flames licking and stretching up from below and

 **blackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblack** andredfootfallsbehindhiminthedark

The first thing he sees is grey. Grey sky, and snow coming down out of it and he squints, the world focusing, looking up into that block of sky and the flecks fall on his face and the now is dry and feathery and not snow and he remembers; the others trying to tell him not to come here, telling him it’s become a ghost town in these past five years, about the fires raging underground and the smoke still coming up from the cracks in the road and the ash always falling. He remembers. He didn’t listen enough to care.

Wasn’t that always his problem?

The world is different here. Quiet, like she said – peaceful? You could say that, yes you _could_ say that. Silent. Yes. He can hear nothing, see very little beyond the immediate meters the mist is so thick, swirling, almost groping at him. He can feel slats against his back and winces. A bench. A bench on a street underneath a sign. He squints up at it – _LINDSAY ST._ He frowns, remembering, not understanding anything except this memory – a map; he fumbles in his pocket, his finger brushing something cold, something dying. He takes out the miniature bouquet and stares at it. He swings his legs round to it on the bench, rests the **flowers** on his knee and opens the locket he never takes off. The same flowers. He wonders where they grow now. They were from here, weren’t they? He closes his eyes and sees a field. He puts the locket away, sits heavily on the edge of the bench.

Finally he moves. He unfolds the map, stares at the scrawl on it, the ring around _Rosewater Park_ in the north by the lake. _Rosewater Park_ then. He finds himself and it is easy, the park off _NATHAN LANE_ running in a T bar across _LINDSAY STREET._ Easy. He nods at his feet to move and head north up the street.

Thank god he watches his feet, he thinks afterwards, because just as the road should turn into _NATHAN LANE_  it turns into nothing at all. No road where a road should be, just a drop like an earth quake has torn the town apart. He cannot see how long the break goes on- it could be forever into the mist, could be only a few feet. He feels suddenly blindingly dizzy, and holds out his arms, backing up fast.

 

 

 He moves away from that terrible edge, ragged like a wound in the fabric of the town, turns his back on it, neck prickling as though the drop is watching him, checks his map again. He walks. Following the map he heads back down _LINDSAY STREET,_ right onto _KATZ STREET, right again onto NEELY STREET._ He pauses once on _KATZ STREET_ between the two cafes, bright red and white table umbrellas still incongruously out and flapping loudly in the faint air like ominous sails, dull red, dirty white. He finds a half full bottle of wine on one of the tables, sniffs it, and takes it.

**You got: wine bottle.**

As he pauses there, sniffing the vinegary wine, he hears a shuffling sound down the alleyway opposite, a dead end according to his map. He goes, as though fated. At the far end, through the mist, beneath the wall he sees a figure, a figure in pain shuffling, bent at a terrible angle with its hands over its ears as though anything could hurt it. He shudders and moves on at a faster pace until he comes to the church on the north corner of _NEELY STREET,_ a curling sign reading _ST STELLA’S._ He looks up at it warily, remembers it, does not like it. He remembers a girl in a white dress  standing in a  perfect beam of sunlight, gold necklace around her perfect pale throat glinting in that sunlight, the flash in her eye as she met his glance across the aisles, her smile, dazzling, blasphemous in its brightness. Enough of this. Enough. He turns left onto _NATHAN LANE_ and after a few steps sees the south wall of the park come out of the mists on his right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should probably mention - updates on this are probably going to be slower than I usually do just cause of the time it takes to do the artworks and manips and stuff so thank you for your patience :-)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If possible keep the sound on your computer on and turn up the volume as high as you can for the link in this chapter.

**Rosewater Park**

_[ATHOS enters in the gate and heads up the park’s main pathway due North, letting his feet lead hi; remembering the view from the North walk over the lake. He can see maybe three meters ahead of him. As he approaches the lake he follows the path round to the left, there is a WOMAN leaning against the railings, overlooking the lake. ATHOS stares at her, heart stopping, steps towards her -]_

**Athos:** Anne?

_[She turns- red dress- drops the hood of her cloak, smiles; green eyes, dark hair, choker. ATHOS takes a step back, puts an arm out in front of him as though to ward her off]_

**Athos:** no – you’re not – you’re –

 **Woman:** I always remind people of someone – who was she, dead girlfriend?

 **Athos:** No my – my late wife – god, you could be her twin – your face – that voice –

 **Woman:** My name’s Anna- do I look like your dead wife’s ghost?

 **Athos:** No – I mean – you do – but –

 **Anna:** Look –

_[She reaches out, touches his face, he starts back as though burned]_

**Anna:** Do I feel like a ghost?

 **Athos:** I’m dreaming.

 **Anna:** Drunk perhaps, not dreaming. Where are you going?

 **Athos:** _[shaking his head]_ I have to find my wife.

 **Anna:** The dead one?

 **Athos:** Yes – no – I don’t –

 **Anna:** Let me know when you do – or not –

 **Athos:** If you’ve seen her – no wait she was at the **_house_** –

 **Anna:** What **_house_**? What are you talking about?

 **Athos:** There was a **_house_ ** – on the edge of town it was burning – she was trapped – I – I tried to save her –

 **Anna:** You’re saying the ghost of your dead wife was burning in a **_house_ ** fire just outside of town? Are you crazy?

 **Athos:** Maybe – I can’t think –

 **_[_ ** _He puts a hand to his head. ANNA moves forward to touch him]_

 **Anna:** You want me to rub it better for you?

 **Athos:** _[springs back]_ No! Get away from me! She was burning and I –

 **Anna:** _[sulks]_ Fine. But did you think of trying the hospital?

 **Athos:** The what?

 **Anna:** You see a girl burn and you come for a walk in the park before going to see if she’s in the hospital? What kind of guy are you?

 **Athos:** _[quietly]_ I wish I knew. _[out loud]_ Which way’s the hospital?

 **Anna:** Brookhaven – just round the corner, unless your dead burning wife’s as crazy as you are then try Cedar Grove on the other side of town or Alchemilla – take your pick.

 **Athos:** Brookhaven – thanks I’ll – I’ll see you around.

 **Anna:** I’ll be here. I’m always here.

_[ATHOS starts to walk away, he is almost out of hearing distance when]_

Waiting. Waiting in our special place.

_[He freezes. Did he hear that? He can’t have heard that. He walks away. He always walks away.]_

**Streets of Silent Hill**

He walks past the spot where he met her, turning his head to LOOK BACK and see her still standing there, again looking out over the lake. He turns left down the west walkway, running parallel to the path he took up to the lake. At the end of the path he comes back out onto _NATHAN AVENUE._ With a quick check of his map he heads west for a short distance before turning left on to _CARROL STREET._ He passes the bowling alley and night club on his right before turning down a narrow alleyway that opens up into the front drive of _BROOKHAVEN HOSPITAL._ As he stands there looking up at the building ( _thedarknessiscoming)_ his head starts to feel as though it is

 

 

  And close and ear splittingly loud a

 

**[SIREN](http://silenthillmedia.net/sh2/audio/sound/SH2-Siren.mp3)**

 

 

 

Splitting the air in two and coming up from the ground and all around him everywhere and it’s too late everywhere because the walls, the ground, the sky, everything is turning to ash, flaking away from itself, peeling back and all the pieces pulling and fluttering up blackly into the darkening sky and a voice in his head yells

And he does he

Runs

            Up

                        The

                                    Stairs

                        And

            Into

The

_HOSPITAL._

Thank god.

 

**Brookhaven**

Inside is dark with a single glow from above the reception desk, he follows the glow to a torch left burning on the side.

**You got: Torch.**

He throws the light around the foyer, looking for something – anything really, a sign, a person, anything to tell him where to go, what to do. He always has to be given instructions, orders, something to fix his life around. When nothing is forthcoming he turns back to the front desk. There’s a list of admissions just next to where he found the torch, the most recent has been circled in red, the same red he is sure as he saw on the map in the house. He wonders why she is doing this- if it is her doing this- to torment him, to play with him or torture him – all much the same in the end. He cannot read the name and where he expects to read _Severe burns_ in the description box he reads instead _Asphyxiation, contusions to throat._ He feels sick, wonders if it is too late to leave. But it has always been too late; it was too late the moment he got the letter. He reads across to where a location has been circled in the same red – _Hyde Ward, 2612._ He looks around for a map of the hospital and finds it on the wall behind reception.

**You got: Brookhaven hospital Map.**

 

****

He finds Hyde Ward, 3rd floor, west wing, left after the elevator left again and right. He shoves the map into a pocket and repeats this to himself over and over as he heads to the elevator – _Left, left,_ _right, left, left, right._ The second left takes him through a door into a long poorly lit passageway, opens onto a groaning and a shuffling of feet, too far down the passage for him to see. He walks, uncertainly, forward.

She lurches at him out of  the shadows, painted crazy in the torch light, a white tattered skirt and a hood over her head, curves in the right places, moving at all the wrong angles like a puppet on a string, there is a noose looped around her neck and crooked agony in the twist of her arms and legs. She holds a knife above her head to bring down, scuttling at him fast in that awful jagged walk. He does what he has to do, that terrible instinct for survival he has always had kicking in. That terrible instinct that has kept him alive when he has wished otherwise, making him win every fight he has ever started in the hope of losing. He does not think – the curse and the blessing of his existence – he just lifts his gun and shoots-

And when she continues to lurch for him, painfully now and crab-like, he lashes out at her with his sword, not cutting but knocking her to the ground, lashing out again and blood sprays amongst the powder filling the corridor, making him choke. He prods the crumpled mass with his toe and blood seeps from her, darkening the ground and leaking onto his boot and he is not sure if he is relieved or disgusted or distressed to find her dead but there is no time to decide because the shuffling sound has. Not. Stopped. He looks up at the two others coming round the corner in her wake and he does not think he can do this again, backing away and cursing and he hears himself whisper but he does not know to whom –

“Help me. Somebody help.”

And from behind them round the corner he hears the screeching grate of a great great knife being dragged heavily across the floor.

__x__

**Author's Note:**

> *1. The "Athos" text is delivered almost entirely from the opening of "Silent Hill 2" The Game, just with minor names and  
> details changed.  
> *2. I wanted to have the word "House" in blue and "Forget - me - nots" or "Flowers" in red but it's proved not doable,  
> hence the bold/ italics. Folks as have read "House of Leaves" will get why.  
> *3. The exchange "Go to hell"/ "We're already there" is the best crossover in this chapter I think. Obviously the exchange  
> is lifted direct from "Silent Hill: revelations" but also "We're already in hell don't you recognise it?"  
> *4. Artwork by Zedrobber. The Athos monster whose hands have fused to his ears through never listening when he  
> should have done. The top quotation is from The Musketeers musical and the middle one from Season (ugh) 3. The  
> lower one next to the Pyramid Head version comes from the creator of Pyramid head who described the monster as  
> "Another James" Being the manifestation of James Sunderland's guilt and sexual hang - ups regarding his dead wife.  
> Go figure.  
> *5. Yes the wording of the letter from Anne is verbatim the letter Mary wrote to James. I never claimed anything here was  
> actually original.  
> *6. Yes these footnotes are going to continue and probably be extensive. Again if you've read "House of Leaves" you'll  
> know not to skip them for plot points may be contained herein.


End file.
